[2025] UKUT 240 (AAC)

Before moving to deal with the key legal issue with which this appeal is concerned, I explain briefly why the other three grounds of appeal are not made out.

Daily living activity 3. The FTT did not fail to consider relevant evidence concerning daily living activity 3. Paragraph 18 of the FTT’s reasons shows that the FTT considered the appellant’s arguments that he needed another person to keep a close eye on him because of his history of falls and deteriorations in his health conditions. The FTT did not accept those arguments and has reasoned out in some detail why it rejected those arguments on the evidence. The arguments the appellant makes under this ground are, on final analysis, no more than evidential reargument.

Whether reasonable to use hearing aids. The FTT dealt with daily living activity 7 (communicating verbally) in paragraph 22 of its reasons and within that the implications of the appellant’s hearing loss. The FTT accepted the appellant had hearing difficulties but found on the evidence that these difficulties did not materially affect the appellant’s ability to ‘communicate verbally’. Most relevantly, the FTT found on the evidence before it that the appellant was not in fact using hearing aids at the relevant time for the appeal before it. The appellant’s argument does not dispute this but argues instead that the evidence also showed that the appellant’s hearing problems had started about two years before 3 April 2023. This again is no more than evidential reargument. The date of the decision under appeal to the FTT was 5 April 2022. The FTT accepted that the appellant had hearing difficulties in April 2022, which is consistent with what the appellant now argues, but that these difficulties were not sufficient to affect the appellant’s ability to communicate verbally. The appellant’s ground here, moreover, is not helped by the false premise that the FTT “state that it had found that there was nothing to suggest that [the appellant] suffered from hearing difficulties during the required period”. As noted above, the FTT accepted the appellant had hearing difficulties.

Mobility activity 2 (moving around). The appellant’s ground here seeks to contrast his evidence to the PIP assessment and in a UC85 with his evidence to the FTT and argues, it seems, that these contrasts were not ironed out by the FTT. This is also no more than rearguing the evidence. The FTT addressed all of this evidence in detail in paragraphs 29-31 of the reasons for its decision. That included the health care professionals’ views of the appellant’s evidence. The FTT upheld the finding that the appellant could stand and move using an aid (his crutches) more than 20 metres but no more than 50 metres. It has reasoned out adequately and clearly why the evidence did not support the appellant’s ability to mobilise being 20 metres or less. And the evidence before the FTT did not make it irrational for it to decide that the appellant’s ability to mobilise was greater than 20 metres.